The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“I should be getting along. I’m holding you up from your walk,” I said. “Do I go around to the back of the house to find the servants’ entrance?”


“That’s right. If you follow that path it will take you through the orchard and you’ll see the back door.”

I thanked her and followed the path that skirted the wall, nicely hidden by large shrubs, until it came out to an apple orchard. Beyond the orchard was a stretch of lawn and beyond that some sort of earthwork was going on with a couple of men digging away and another hammering at some wood. I spotted the servants’ entrance at the back of the building and made for it. A maid was hanging out a line of laundry. She must have been so involved in her task that she didn’t hear me coming because she jumped and put her hand to her mouth to cover a scream.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’ve come about Maureen O’Byrne.”

“Maureen? She’s not here anymore.” The girl looked around nervously as if she wasn’t sure whether she’d get into trouble for talking to me. “Are you a relative of hers?”

I decided there were times when lying was permissible. This was one of them. “I am,” I said. “My name’s Molly. I’ve come over from Ireland because the family is worried about her.”

“I’m Anna.” She gave me a friendly little nod. “You heard then, did you?” she paused. “About what happened to her and why she’s not here?”

“About the baby, you mean? I did,” I said. “I was up at the convent and they said she was supposed to come back here, but that she ran off.”

“That’s what we heard too,” the girl said.

“So she never did come back then?”

She shook her head. “The last we saw of her was when she left here several months ago.”

“How well did you know Maureen?” I asked.

A wistful smile crossed her face. “We were good pals. A really nice girl. Refined. Kept herself to herself, if you know what I mean. Rather religious, wasn’t she? Really cut up about the baby. She said, ‘I’ll be spending centuries in purgatory for this, if I don’t go to hell.’”

“It must have been hard for her with Mrs. Mainwaring having a baby at the same time.” I said. “Sort of reminding her of what she was giving up.”

She looked at me funnily, embarrassed, almost as if she was in an agony of indecision.

“I suppose that’s why she didn’t want to come back to have to take care of another woman’s child,” I went on.

Her cheeks were bright red now and she shifted from one foot to the other, looking extremely uncomfortable. “It wasn’t exactly as easy as that. That’s why she was so torn. She didn’t want to be here, in fact she hated Mrs. Mainwaring, but she wanted to be near the baby. Well, who wouldn’t?” She looked at me, her eyes imploring me to understand. And suddenly I did. And as soon as I realized, I wondered how I could have been so dense.

My hand went up to my mouth. “It’s her child, isn’t it? Maureen’s. Mrs. Mainwaring couldn’t have children so they decided to adopt this one.”

She nodded. “We’re not supposed to know about it, but of course we all do. It’s the closest he’d ever come to a proper heir, I suppose.”

And then the final piece of the puzzle fell into place and again I wondered how I could not have seen the truth earlier.

“I see now. It was his child. Mr. Mainwaring. He was the father.”

She looked around, in case anyone might have overheard us. Then she moved in closer to me, speaking in a low voice. “That’s why she was scared to come back here. She thought he wouldn’t keep his hands off her again. Well, you know—Maureen is a pretty girl, isn’t she? And Mrs. Mainwaring—she hasn’t much interest in that sort of thing. She keeps her bedroom door locked most nights. I can tell because I take up her morning coffee, and I have to tap on the door and say, ‘It’s me, Anna, with the coffee, ma’am,’ before she’ll come and open it.”

“I see,” I said.

“And he’s that sort of man, isn’t he?” she went on. “Healthy appetite for that kind of thing, you know. He’s tried it with other servants in the past and some girls left rather than giving him his way. He tried it with me once, but I slapped his face and made it quite clear that he’d better not touch me. Maureen was so na?ve, she didn’t realize until too late. And she didn’t want to be fired.”

“So she didn’t want to come back and yet she wanted to be close to her child. Poor thing. What a tough decision to make.”